Week 8 Tech Tools for Teaching

AVILL tool was a total hit for me. I could not stop thinking of how to use it with my students since clearly Jeff mentioned in the webinar this tool is being used just for high school students and adults. When I finish my readings and took the seminar about ANVILL I learned that we can use the tool as audio journals. I am still thinking about how to make this opportunity available to my students. I bet recording their voices when they’re talking in English would be motivating for them too.

During the webinar I really had a nice experience watching the video and communicating using text and voice with the rest of the teachers and moderators in real time.  Later on I explored ANVILL myself and it was an amazing experience. I saw the courses created on ANVILL and I learned a lot from them. This tool definitely let the “teacher put digestible amounts of content in front of students” as Jeff mentioned in his article Authoring with ANVILL. This is a well thought-out tool to develop oral/aural skills.  Another admirable feature is that teachers can make use of cooperative activities like WebQuest, and ANVILL can embed tools like Voice Threat on it.

While I was reading the assignments for this week, I was also thinking about my specific situation with parents without computers or with computers but without internet service. I decided to create the class site to post materials and encourage parents to be involved in their children’s second language learning. It is common for most of them to use internet cafes and I am sure they would do an effort to check the materials from it. I had a concern after I created the class site; most of the parents do not know English and the site is written completely in English. This made me think about the necessity to use it in class every day for children to become familiar with it. Also I would like to invite parents to learn how to use it in a short workshop. These things are going to make students and parents use this tool with ease.

When I saw PO-YU’s alphabet using a tool for Taiwanese to learn English, it made me think about creating a bilingual class site too in order to facilitate parents to guide their children. I am going to hold on to that thought for now.

As Mohini mentioned, “I need to practice the same to get more familiar with the tools so that I can use them effectively.” Teachers need more time to learn how to make the most of every tool.  It is a good investment of time because after we learn how to use them well, we can start saving a lot of time developing materials and better delivering the contents to our students. 

I learned a lot from finishing my draft and reviewing my peer’s draft. I had the opportunity to see other’s work, and the way they are planning or had addressed their specific situations incorporating technology in their classrooms.

It was a remarkable experience and great collaboration exercise.

Regards

Aida